The Project

In the last ten years Digital Textile Printing (DTP) technologies have been revolutionizing the way textiles are printed, moving from large batches of standardized drawings to one square meter large’ lots, where every piece of the textile substrate may have different patterns and colours than the next one. Nowadays, in some European textile districts, DTP acquired more than 50% of the market.

Unfortunately, DTP requires the fabric to be fully pre-treated using urea in order to let the ink properly penetrate. Urea is then completely washed-out and the resulting wastewater is extremely rich in nitrogen. Current wastewater treatment plants suffer this nitrogen overload and the LIFE DeNTreat project comes with an actual answer: decentralised pre-treatment modules based on the ANAMMOX (ANaerobic AMMonium Oxidation) microbial process are expected to sustainably abate the ammonium pollution where it is created, reduce at least by 40% the investment and operational costs of nitrogen-rich wastewater treatment, minimize by 80% the N2O emissions during wastewater treatment, and produce sludge for less than 25% of the currently adopted technologies.